Where Does Texas Rank In Stolen Vehicles? It Might Surprise You.
Out of all Amarillo's problems with crime, one of the biggest ones we deal with daily is theft.
I'm not talking about jacking a candy bar from the convenience store. I'm talking about more significant theft. One of the prominent thefts we deal with is catalytic converters from cars. That's not a secret.
It doesn't seem to stop there though, because I see a lot of posts on different Facebook groups about entire cars being stolen as well. Well, I have some good news/bad news for ya.
Amarillo isn't alone in that problem.
In a report released by CarVertical.com, Texas as a whole ranks fifth in the entire nation in stolen vehicles, and that's not exactly a stat we want to be a part of. Now to be fair, we're a big state so the sheer number of vehicles in it is larger than most other states.
Size isn't everything though, because smaller states rank ahead of Texas in stolen vehicle rate. We check in at number five on the list with 13 out of every 1,000 registered vehicles being stolen. That breaks down to one in every 77 vehicles being stolen. Pretty alarming rate isn't it?
Some cars are easier to be stolen than others, so if you have these two cars, you're a bit more susceptible to having your vehicle stolen. The top-ranking one in 2022 was a Chevrolet pick-up with 48,206 thefts, and the Ford pick-up follows it up very closely with 47,999 thefts.
If you have a Toyota Camry, you are in a better spot as these are the least stolen vehicles with 17,270 thefts.
It's recommended that if you're buying a car from a private party, be sure to do a vehicle history check before purchasing anything and make sure it's not a stolen one. Can you imagine buying a car and then getting pulled over because someone thinks you stole it?
There are steps you can take to protect your car like alarm systems, parking it in a garage, etc. but none of those things are foolproof as those things won't necessarily stop someone from stealing your vehicle, it'll just make it tougher.